Thursday 1 September 2016

Best and worst energy suppliers’ complaints gap widest on record

The gap between the best and worst performing energy suppliers at dealing with customer complaints is the widest on record.

The latest table of 21 energy firms from Citizens Advice reveals small energy supplier Extra Energy performed 80 times worse than the best performing Big Six supplier SSE.

The former company received 1,791 complaints per 100,000 customers. By contrast, SSE received 22.5 per 100,000.

They were followed by npower, Spark Energy, iSupply and First Utility.

Suppliers’ scores are calculated based on the seriousness of the complaint against them and how long it took to resolve.

The second and third worst suppliers were Co-operative Energy and ScottishPower, receiving 850 and 571 complaints per 100,000 customers.

EDF Energy, E (Gas and Electricity), British Gas, E.ON ranked from second to fifth place for best complaints handling.

Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “People shouldn’t face a gamble on getting good customer service. The latest league table shows some suppliers are getting much better at sorting out their customers’ problems but it's disappointing to see others getting worse at dealing with complaints.

“Patchy and unpredictable customer service affects people in many ways - from the financial stress of being hit with a late bill to the time wasted trying to get hold of a supplier on the phone.”

Extra Energy apologised to customers and said it is now dealing with more complaints.

Managing Director of Operations Ben Jones said: "These figures reflect historic customer service issues that occurred during a period of time where Extra Energy saw our number of customers expand rapidly and unfortunately some of these complaints have taken longer than expected to resolve.

"We apologise unreservedly to anyone who has not received the standard of service we expect of ourselves."